Battlefield 4 Naval Strike: Carrier Assault

One exciting feature of the upcoming Battlefield 4 Naval Strike expansion is the Carrier Assault game mode, where two opposing teams launch attacks on each others aircraft carriers. To explain the ins and outs of Carrier Assault, we hand over to lead gameplay designer Gustav Halling.

Carrier Assault is an homage to the Titan game mode of Battlefield 2142, but this time the all-out war rages in the South Chinese Sea, and your objective is to destroy the enemy team’s carrier before they infiltrate and destroy yours. Our goal has been to make Carrier Assault a really engaging game mode, and we truly believe the amount of variety present each round will assure this. You start out fighting a big-scale war with sea, land, and air vehicles controlling the map, and then everything evolves into an infantry-focused, close quarter fight inside both carriers at the same time!

Carrier Assault Explained
So how is a match of Carrier Assault played out? There are two ways of destroying the enemy carrier: either by full map control or assaulting the carrier as infantry. Each round is divided into 2 stages, starting with map control and ending with carrier attack. Both teams start on their own carrier and race to control the missile launchers placed on the map, by capturing the control points near them. This will automatically launch missiles towards the enemy carrier throughout the round, eventually destroying its hull and making it open for infantry attacks.

When this happens for one or both teams, the carrier assault state is started. The team can then either drive a boat out to the carrier and climb aboard, or use the parachute spawn points above it. Once inside, the team must destroy two M-COM stations, which will open up new areas to the carrier, with the engine room being the final one.

Destroying the two M-COM’s, or bringing down the carrier hull’s health to 0%, will win the match for your team.

An Hommage to a Classic Game Mode
Battlefield 2142 and Titan mode veterans will feel right at home with Carrier Assault, with the unique focus of giving players several options to win the match – either through map control or close quarter fighting inside the enemy HQ. The differences in setting and time period do however make Carrier Assault a fresh experience, and we hope you will get the same thrill out of parachute-spawning down to a carrier as you did when blasting off in a rocket pod towards a Titan.

Challenges Along the Way
Carrier Assault has been a fun challenge to develop, with many important aspects to be aware of. As fans of the old Titan mode, we really wanted to nail the end game part of the game mode, where both teams are attacking each other’s carriers. From a design point of view, it was important to create that special feeling of excitement that the potential different outcomes of a match generates.

We also wanted to keep control of the map important, so a team which is having trouble pushing through inside the enemies’ carrier can still win the level by defending their own carrier while controlling the missile launchers.

Coming Late March
We hope you will have fun with Carrier Assault when it launches later this month. Please share your thoughts on this game mode in the comments below, and make sure to keep Battlefield 4 Naval Strike on your radar the following weeks. Thanks for reading!